Credit: ILR School

The ILR School will move its midtown Manhattan office to the former RCA Victor Building at 570 Lexington Ave. in January 2019. The move will heighten ILR's presence in New York City, provide a central location for New York City-based ILR classes and events, and leverage technology to enhance the experiences of more than 5,000 students trained through ILR Outreach programs annually. It will also include space for other Ithaca-based Cornell units to co-locate and work collaboratively with ILR.

“This is a new chapter in ILR’s history and its physical presence in Manhattan since 1948,” said Kevin F. Hallock, the Kenneth F. Kahn ’69 Dean of the ILR School. “I look forward to this space expanding existing collaborative partnerships with people from across the university and igniting new ones. Like the university at large, ILR sees New York City as an important part of its future.”

ILR’s 40,000-square-foot office and conference center on the 11th and 12th floors will include a 150-person event space and six classrooms, a café and smaller meeting rooms.

It will be home to nearly 100 staff and faculty members based in the city, including ILR Outreach extension faculty and staff. ILR Outreach programs provide education, training and technical assistance to businesses, labor unions, governments and civic organizations, along with conducting research and public programs on work and workplace challenges.

The new location places ILR’s New York City hub closer to Cornell Tech and Weill Cornell Medicine, and will also serve as the home of Cornell’s Urban Semester program Medical Culture and Practice.

It provides space to support community-engaged work and will serve as one of four offices housing Cornell Cooperative Extension’s New York City programs. Weill Cornell Medicine will locate some offices on the 9th and 10th floors of the building.

This convergence will place various Cornell programs and schools in one building, creating additional opportunities for increased collaboration.

The new space is in a 50-floor Art Deco building built in 1931 and designed by John W. Cross. Formerly the RCA Victor Building, it was later bought by General Electric and is now owned by the Feil Organization. It was designated a New York City landmark in 1985 and added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2004.

Cornell community members can email Melissa Manning with questions regarding use of the space.